Selfsufficientish.com

I put my bag of Maris pipers I bought at the end of march in a cool dark shed and only pull them out the other day. They've grown the spindly white shoots. Are they any good to plant now? Can I salvage them. If so, how?

I'd plant them quick and deep and see what happens...?

as above but also you could leave them in the light for a week and let the shoots green up a bit. Having said that cut the shoots off and use as normal spuds......

I'll go out on a limb and say they'll be fine.

OK - you're supposed to chit them and get nice, healthy, green shoots. But if they were in the ground, you'd get white shoots anyway - no light, no green.

Remove all but the strongest-looking shoots and plant away. I'm betting you'll get spuds in a few months.

Mike

It's been three days now. ANy ideas roughly how long before I should expect anything to come through?

Thanks

Lol!

Mate, you just have to be patient, it depends on soil, and rain and temperature, as well as slugs etc

Although to manage your expectations give it 14 to 21 days to see anything and you are doing ok, once they get going they shoot away this time of year.

I never bother chitting my maincrop potatoes... The did a big trial on The Beechgrove Garden a few years back, and the conclusion they came to was that chitting would give you a slightly earlier crop, but at the expense of some yield - so it doesn't really seem worthwhile for anything other than first earlies.

(Do you folks get Beechgrove down south?)

I put some Home Guard first earlies in the fridge salad drawer back in February, they also had long spindly shoots when I got them out a few weeks ago. I pulled them all off and about 2 weeks later they had all regrown nice sturdy new shoots. I planted half last week and the other half I intend to plant in about a months time for a (hopefully) staggered crop.

The Jersey Royals that I commented on a few weeks ago with solid fresh seed tubers are still solid and fresh with nice shoots forming, and I'm still getting more as I dig each plant. Weird or what ?
I can't realistically think I can get two crops off of each seed tuber, but it's certainly worth a try.

Beechgrove is only on in Scotland, but those less fortunate than ourselves can see it on iPlayer. I have converted many of my Dahn Sarf gardening friends to the joys of Beechgrove.